Reconstructing Our Conscience
Las Vegas county sheriff Joseph Lombardo called him a “lone-wolf type actor.” President Trump called him “pure evil.” Las Vegas mayor Carol Goodman called him a “crazed lunatic.” But why does Joseph Paddock — a 64-year-old man and now the perpetrator of one of the largest terrorist attacks in American history — not get called a terrorist? The federal government characterizes terrorism as “the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.” While the motive of Joseph Paddock remains unclear, it is undeniable that his actions were meant to “intimidate and coerce the government and civilian population.” It is clear that the conflict over using the t-word when referring to domestic terrorism lies deeper than its poor legal definition. The policy choice of what we decide as terrorism may be tied to deep-seated bias which has hidden acts of domestic terrorism that have plagued America’s history.
[pullquote]Why does the perpetrator of one of the greatest terrorist attacks in American history not get called a terrorist?[/pullquote]
To reflect back on America’s tension with domestic terrorism, it is essential to look at the most successful terrorist organization in America’s history: The Ku Klux Klan. In 1866, former Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest founded the Klan primarily to fight the efforts of Reconstruction and radical Republicanism. The Klan’s primary motive at the time was to disenfranchise voting African Americans and make sure power structures which oppressed African Americans largely remained in place post-Civil War. This effort was primarily enforced through a network of violent murders to intimidate black voters and Southern sympathizers so that Democrats could continue to hold public office in the South. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, there were over 3500 racially-motivated lynchings reported between 1865 and 1900 along with multiple mass murders, arson, and systemic voter suppression. The wave of violence seen in the South after America abolished slavery was unlike anything seen in any other society that abolished slavery in the 19th century.
This bloody account of America’s transition to a post-slavery society is often misrepresented and suppressed in American history textbooks. In 1990, the Los Angeles Times reported that high schools students knew less about Reconstruction than any other period in American history. A study conducted on Mississippi history textbooks from 1887 to 1976 found that Mississippi textbooks primarily taught Reconstruction through the lens of the “Lost Cause” myth, an ideology which paints the Civil War as an honorable struggle to preserve the Southern way of life. When sociologist, James Loewen attempted to publish his own textbook, Mississippi: Conflict and Change, that included the bloody details of Reconstruction in Mississippi, he was fiercely challenged in the U.S. District Court in the lawsuit Loewen v. Turnipseed. Clearly, Reconstruction has not been an easy topic to broach but what has caused this contention?
[pullquote]High schools students know less about Reconstruction than any other period in American history.[/pullquote]
At its core, the issue comes down to how the story of Reconstruction is told. The popular interpretation of Reconstruction in the mid-1900’s was the “Dunning School,” pioneered by William Archibald Dunning, a professor at Columbia. It portrayed post Civil-War America as a country recovering from a brutal war which attempted a series of disconnected actions somewhat related to increasing liberty for freed slaves which were largely unsuccessful. Consequently, many of today’s textbooks tried to maintain this perspective in their own historiography of Reconstruction. What this perspective misrepresents is that there was in fact a legitimate, organized effort by the country to make a transition to a post-slavery society. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, after Congress passed the Reconstruction Act of 1867, there were many jurisdictions where black voter turnout reached 90 percent and over six hundred African Americans were elected as state legislators. Furthermore, Republicans successfully passed the 14th and 15th amendment to erase race-based discrimination and a preliminary version of the Civil Rights Act in quick succession in 1868 and 1869 marking further progress towards racial equality.
So, where was the monumental change resulting from these landmark legislation? It was nonexistent in the South largely due to the largest terrorist network in American history. The Ku Klux Klan managed to prevent real legislative progress with strategic violent riots before elections where they murdered hundreds of African Americans in order to scare them from voting so that Democratic leaders controlled the South. The violent terrorism was so pervasive in the South that it required federal attention. In response to multiple reports about racial violence in the South, President Grant asked for and passed the Second Enforcement Act which allowed the government to suspend habeas corpus to respond to the Klan’s terrorism. This successfully allowed Grant to supersede state disobedience in enforcing the 14th and 15th amendments, creating precedent for the use of federal power to curb mass violence. While Grant’s enforcement acts were successful in decreasing the violence and the prominence of the Klan’s tactics, the social order that oppressed African Americans remained. However, there was now precedent for using federal power to combat the Klan’s terrorism and its organized violence.
Grant’s progress with the Enforcement acts would largely be erased prior to the second rise of the Klan, as the Klan resurges in the 1920’s. Largely due to the film, Birth of a Nation, a movie which romanticized the Klan and was screened by president Woodrow Wilson in the White House, images of the Klan as a terrorist organization that incited mass violence were erased from America’s conscience. What instead followed was a shift in ideology to look at these domestic terrorists as heroes, “restoring order to the chaos of the South during Reconstruction.” What is apparent is that Birth of a Nation not only brought back the Klan but also normalized violence in the vein of “preserving America.” It cemented that violence created by domestic upheaval is not an ideological or cultural threat; instead, violence at home is a symptom of progress.
The repercussions of this era are far-reaching. Brown v. Board of Education, the first truly successful push for progressive civil rights reform came 90 years after the Civil War ended. The Klan’s methodology for pushing change through violence was very effective and its success in doing so only ingrained its romanticizing in the South. Undeniably, the Klan’s tactics were the use of violence to incite terror, a practice which the U.S. wholeheartedly derides today. Unfortunately, both the embarrassment from the North and the nostalgia from the South of America’s history with these crusaders makes Reconstruction a topic which America continues to avoid as a whole. Its own sensitive history and its deep ties to American identity are a reminder of America’s visceral failure to combat domestic terrorism yesterday and today.
Arguably, the era of Reconstruction has shaped how we as Americans address the concept of domestic terrorism. The press and many politicians will refuse to label “homegrown” acts of violence as “terror” even though the legal federal definition clearly includes it. As a country, it seems as if it is hard to acknowledge that terrorism has a powerful influence in America even today as it did during Reconstruction. A large part of this fear of domestic terrorism is clearly rooted in America’s own intimate relationship with it during the period. And because of this fear, America continues to choose to define domestic terrorism narrowly such that we can explain away these acts of terror as merely unfortunate events.
[pullquote]The reality of Reconstruction is ugly, bloody, and terrible but we should not let America’s failure in the 1870’s and 1900’s define how we address domestic terrorism today.[/pullquote]
It is a strong American belief that its society is not controlled by violence but by just, democratic principles. Anything which calls that into question threatens American character and identity. The fact that Reconstruction highlights a period not only where violence was successfully but was also celebrated makes it an incredibly tense topic. This is why Reconstruction historiography attempts to hide or reorient the focus of Reconstruction towards the instability during the period and how that was resolved making it seem less important. Yes, the reality of Reconstruction is ugly, bloody, and terrible but we should not let America’s failure in the 1870’s and 1900’s define how we address lingering problems with domestic terrorism today. It is difficult to come to terms with the fact that the KKK had such a strong influence on America’s history, but an honest reading of our own history is what we need to solve today’s problems. Terror comes from a universal use of violence in order to intimidate the citizen population; it is not concerned with whether the terrorist is someone we relate to or not. Evaluating our past for what it is will help us come to terms with the reality of domestic terrorism in all of its forms so that we can have a real conversation about reducing it. Maybe then we will be able to call Joseph Paddock what he is: a terrorist.
Ishaan Shah ‘20 studies in the College of Arts & Sciences. He can be reached at ishaanshah@wustl.edu.